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COFmEGHT DEPOSIT. 







ABE LINCOLN 
AND NANCY HANKS 

BEING ONE OF 

ELBERT HUBBARD'S 

FAMOUS LITTLE JOURNEYS 

TO WHICH IS ADDED 

FOR FULL MEASURE 

A TRIBUTE 

TO THE 

MOTHER OF LINCOLN 




THE ROYCROFTERS 

EAST AURORA, ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK 



£4-51 



Copyright, 1920 
By The Roycrofters 



M -3 1921 
©CIA605229 



"With malice toward none; with charity 
for all; with firmness in the right, as 
God gives us to see the right, let us 
strive on to finish the work we are in; 
to bind up the nation's wounds; to care 
for him who has borne the battle, and for 
his widow and orphan — to do all which 
may achieve and cherish a just and last- 
ing peace among ourselves, and with all 
nations." 



ABE LINCOLN 
AND NANCY HANKS 



NANCY HANKS 

MOTHER OF LINCOLN 



IN Spencer County, forty miles Northeast 
of Evansville, and one hundred fifty miles 
from Louisville is Lincoln City, Indiana. 
There was no town there in the days of 
Abraham Lincoln. The " city ** sprang into 
existence with the coming of the railroad, 
only a few years ago. The word " city " was 
anticipatory. 

The place is a hamlet of barely a dozen houses. 
There is a general store, a blacksmith-shop, 
the railroad-station, and a very good school 
to which the youth come from miles around. 
U The occasion of my visit was the annual 
meeting of the Indiana Editors* Association. 
1[ A special train had been provided us by 
the courtesy of the Southern Railway. There 

Page p 



were about two hundred people in the party. 
H At Nancy Hanks Park we were met by 
several hundred farmers and their families, 
some of whom had come for twenty-five 
miles and more to attend the exercises. 
As I sat on the platform and looked into the 
tanned, earnest faces of these people, I realized 
the truth of that remark of Thomas Jefferson, 
*' The chosen people of God are those who 
till the soil." 

These are the people who have ever fought 
freedom's fight. And the children of such as 
these are often the men who go up to the cities 
and take them captive. 

In the cities the poor imitate the follies and 
foibles of the rich to the extent of their ability. 
1[ But here, far away from the big towns and 
cities, we get a type of men and women such 
as Lincoln knew. They had come with the 
children, brought their lunch in baskets, and 
were making a day of it. 

Page 10 



We formed in line by twos and ascended the 
little hill where the mother of Lincoln sleeps. 
On the simple little granite column are the 
words : 

Nancy Hanks Lincoln 

MOTHER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Died October 5, 181 8 

Aged 2S Years 

Instinctively we uncovered. 
Not a word was spoken. 
An old woman, bowed, bronzed, with fur- 
rowed face, approached. She wore a blue 
sunbonnet, a calico dress, a check apron. 
The apron was full of flowers. 
The old woman pushed through the little 
group and emptied her wild flowers on the 
grave. 

No words of studied oratory could have 
been as eloquent. 
A woman was paying tribute to the woman 

Page II 



who gave to the world the mightiest man 

America has produced! 

And this old woman might have been kin 

to the woman to whose resting-place we had 

journeyed. 

A misty something came over my eyesight, 

and through my mind ran a vision of Nancy 

Hanks. 

** Died aged 35," runs the inscription. 

The family had come from Kentucky, only 

a half-day's journey distant as we count 

miles today by steam and trolley. 

But in Eighteen Hundred Seventeen it took 

the little cavalcade a month to come from 

LaRue County, Kentucky, to Spencer County, 

Indiana, sixteen miles as the birds fly, North 

of the Ohio River. 

Here, land was to be had for the settling. 

For ten miles North from the Ohio the soil 

is black and fertile. 

Then you reach the hills, or what the early 

Page 12 



settlers called " the barrens/* The soil here 
is yellow, the land rolling. 
It is picturesque beyond compare, beautiful 
as a poet^s dream, but tickle it as you will 
with a hoe it will not laugh a harvest. 
At the best it will only grimly grin. 
It is a country of timber and toil. 
Valuable hardwoods abound — oak, walnut, 
ash, hickory. 

Springs flowing from the hills are plentiful, 
wild flowers grow in profusion, the trees are 
vocal with song and birds, but the ground is 
stony and stubborn. 

HERE the family rested by the side of 
the cold, sparkling stream. 
Across the valley to the West the hills arose, 
grand, somber, majestic. 
Down below a stream went dancing its way 
to the sea. 
And near by were rushes and little patches 

Page 13 



of grass, where the tired horses nibbled in 
gratitude. 

And so they rested. There were Thomas 
Lincoln; Nancy Hanks Lincoln, his wife; 
Sarah Lincoln, aged ten; and little Abe 
Lincoln, aged eight. 

The family had four horses, old and lame. 
In the wagon were a few household goods, 
two sacks of cornmeal, a side of bacon. 
Instead of pushing on Westward the family 
decided to remain. They built a shack from 
logs, closed on three sides, open to the South. 
T[ The reason the South side was left open was 
because there was no chimney, and the fire they 
built was half in the home and half outside. 
Here the family lived that first bleak, dreary 
Winter. To Abe and Sarah it was only fun. 
But to Nancy Hanks Lincoln, who was deli- 
cate, illy clothed, underfed, and who had 
known better things in her Kentucky home, 
it was hardship. 

Page 14 



She was a woman of aspiration and purpose, 
a woman with romance and dreams in her 
heart. Now all had turned to ashes of roses. 
Children, those little bold explorers on life's 
stormy sea, accept everything just as a matter 
of course. 

Abe wrote, long years afterward: '* My mother 
worked steadily and without complaining. She 
cooked, made clothing, planted a little garden. 
She coughed at times, and often would have to 
lie down for a little while. We did not know 
she was ill. She was worn, yellow and sad. One 
day when she was lying down she motioned 
me to come near. And when I stood by the 
bed she reached out one hand as if to embrace 
me, and pointing to my sister Sarah said in 
a whisper, ' Be good to her, Abe! 
The tired woman closed her eyes, and it was 
several hours before the children knew she 
was dead. 
The next day Thomas Lincoln made a coffin 

Page IS 



of split boards. The body of the dead woman 
was placed in the rude coffin. And then four 
men carried the coffin up to the top of a little 
hill near by and it was lowered into a grave. 
^ A mound of rocks was piled on top, accord- 
ing to the custom of the times, to protect 
the grave from wild animals. 
Little Abe and Sarah went down the hill, 
dazed and undone, clinging to each other 
in their grief. 

But there was work to do, and Sarah was 
the ** little other mother.'* 

FOR a year she cooked, scrubbed, patched 
the clothing, and looked after the house- 
hold. If Then one day Thomas Lincoln v/ent 
away, and left the two children alone. 
He was gone for a week, but when he came 
back he brought the children a stepmother — 
Sally Bush Johnston. 
This widow who was now Mrs. Thomas 

Page i6 



Lincoln had three children of her own, but 
she possessed enough love for two more. 
Her heart went out to little Abe, and his 
lonely heart responded. 

She brought provisions, dishes, cloth for 
clothing, needles to sew with, scissors to 
cut. She was a good cook. And best of all 
she had three books. 

Up to this time Abe had never worn shoes 
or cap. She made him moccasins, and also 
a coonskin cap, with a dangling tail. 
She taught Abe and Sarah to read, their 
own mother having taught them the alphabet. 
She told them stories — stories of George 
Washington and Thomas Jefferson. She told 
them of the great outside world of towns and 
cities where many people lived. 
She told them of the Capitol at Washing- 
ton, and of the Government of the United 
States. 
And they learned to repeat the names of 

Page 17 



these States, and write the names out with 
a burnt stick on a slab. 

And Little Abe Lincoln and his sister Sarah 
were very happy. 

Their hearts were full of love and gratitude 
for their New Mother, and they sometimes 
wondered if anywhere in the wide world 
there were little boys and girls who had as 
much as they. 

" All I am, and all I hope to be, I owe to 
my darling mother! " wrote Abraham Lincoln, 
years later. 

And it is good to know that Sarah Bush 
Lincoln lived to see the boy evolve into the 
greatest man in America. She survived him 
four years. 

Here Abe Lincoln lived until he was twenty- 
one, until he had attained his height of six 
feet four. 

He had read every book in the neighborhood. 
T[ He had even tramped through the forest 

Page i8 



twenty miles, to come back with a borrowed 
volume, which he had read to his mother by 
the light of a pine-knot. 
He had clerked in the store down at ** The 
Forks/* at Gentryville. 

He had whipped the local bully — and asked 
his pardon for doing so. 
He had spelled down the school and taken 
parts in debates. 

He could split more rails than any other man 
in the neighborhood. 

He had read the Bible, the Revised Statutes 
of Indiana, and could repeat Poor Richard's 
Almanac backward. 

He was a natural leader — the strongest, sanest, 
kindest and truest young man in the neighbor- 
hood. 

WHEN Abe was twenty-one, the family 
decided to move West. There were four 
ox-carts in all. 

Page ig 



One of these carts was driven by Abraham 
Lincoln. 

But before they started, Abe cut the initials 
N. H. L. on a slab and placed it securely at 
the head of the grave of his mother — the 
mother who had given him birth. 
In Eighteen Hundred Seventy-six James 
Studebaker of South Bend bought a marble 
headstone and placed it on the grave. Mr. 
Studebaker also built a picket-fence around 
the grave, and paid the owner of the property 
a yearly sum for seeing that the grave was 
protected, and that visitors were allowed free 
access to the spot. 

In Nineteen Hundred Five certain citizens 
of Indiana bought the hilltop, a beautiful 
grove of thirty acres, and this property is 
now the possession of the State, forever. 
A guardian lives here who keeps the prop- 
erty in good condition. 
A chapel, roofed, but open on all sides, 

Page 20 



has been built, the trees are trimmed, the 
underbrush removed. Winding walks and well- 
kept roadways are to be seen. The park is 
open to the public. Visitors come, some of 
them great and learned. 
And now and again comes some old woman, 
tired, worn, knowing somewhat of the history 
of Nancy Hanks, and all she endured and 
suffered, and places on the mound a bouquet 
gathered down in the meadows. 
And here alone on the hilltop sleeps the woman 
who went down into the shadow and gave 
him birth. 

Biting poverty was her portion; deprivation 
and loneliness were her lot. But on her tomb 
are four words that express the highest praise 
that tongue can utter, or pen indite: 

MOTHER 

OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Page 21 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



THE world will little note nor long re- 
member, what we say here, but it can never 
forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, 
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished 
work which they who fought here have thus far 
so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here 
dedicated to the great task remaining before 
us — that from these honored dead we take in- 
creased devotion to that cause for which they 
gave the last full measure of devotion; that 
we here highly resolve that these dead shall 
not have died in vain; that this nation, under 
God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and 
that government of the people, by the people, 
for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 

— Lincoln s Gettysburg Speech 

Page 23 



No, dearie, I do not think my childhood 
differed much from that of other good 
healthy country youngsters. I 've heard folks 
say that childhood has its sorrows and all 
that, but the sorrows of country children 
do not last long. The young rustic goes out 
and tells his troubles to the birds and flowers, 
and the flowers nod in recognition, and the 
robin that sings from the top of a tall poplar- 
tree when the sun goes down says plainly 
it has sorrows of its own — and understands. 
11 I feel a pity for all those folks who were 
born in a big city, and thus got cheated out 
of their childhood. Zealous ash-box inspectors 
in gilt braid, prying policemen with clubs, 
and signs reading, " Keep Off the Grass," 
are woful things to greet the gaze of little 
souls fresh from God. 

Last Summer six *' Fresh Airs " were sent 
out to my farm, from the Eighth Ward. 
Half an hour after their arrival, one of them.. 

Page 24 



a little girl five years old, who had consti- 
tuted herself mother of the party, came rush- 
ing into the house exclaiming, " Say, Mister, 
Jimmy DriscoU he 's walkin' on de grass! " 
^ I well remember the first Keep-Off-the- 
Grass sign I ever saw. It was in a printed 
book; it was n't exactly a sign, only a picture 
of a sign, and the single excuse I could think 
of for such a notice was that the field was 
full of bumblebee nests, and the owner, being 
a good man and kind, did not want barefoot 
boys to add bee-stings to stone-bruises. And 
I never now see one of those signs but that 
I glance at my feet to make sure that I have 
shoes on. 

Given the liberty of the country, the child 
is very near to Nature's heart; he is brother 
to the tree and calls all the dumb, growing 
things by name. He is sublimely superstitious. 
His imagination, as yet untouched by dis- 
illusion, makes good all that earth lacks. 

Page 2S 



and habited in a healthy body the soul sings 
and soars. 

In childhood, magic and mystery lie close 
around us. The world in which we live is a 
panorama of constantly unfolding delights, 
our faith in the Unknown is limitless, and 
the words of Job, uttered in mankind's morn- 
ing, fit our wondering mood: *' He stretcheth 
out the North over the empty place, and 
hangeth the earth upon nothing." 
I am old, dearie, very old. In my childhood 
much of the State of Illinois was a prairie, 
where wild grass waved and bowed before 
the breeze, like the tide of a Summer sea. 
I remember when " relatives '* rode miles 
and miles in springless farm-wagons to visit 
cousins, taking the whole family and staying 
two nights and a day; when books were things 
to be read; when the beaver and the buffalo 
were not extinct; when wild pigeons came 
in clouds that shadowed the sun; when 

Page 26 



steamboats ran on the Sangamon; when Bishop 
Simpson preached; when Hell was a place, 
not a theory, and Heaven a locality whose 
fortunate inhabitants had no work to do; 
when Chicago newspapers were ten cents 
each; when cotton cloth was fifty cents a 
yard, and my shirt was made from a flour- 
sack, with the legend, '' Extra XXX,'' across 
my proud bosom, and just below the words 
in flaming red, *' Warranted Fifty Pounds!" 
^ The mornings usually opened with smothered 
protests against getting up, for country folks 
then were extremists in the matter of *' early to 
bed,early to rise,makes a man healthy, wealthy 
and wise/' We had n't much wealth, nor were 
we very wise, but we had health to burn. But 
aside from the unpleasantness of early morn- 
ing, the day was full of possibilities of curious 
things to be found in the barn and under 
spreading gooseberry bushes, or if it rained, 
the garret was an Alsatia unexplored. 

Page 2/ 



The evolution of the individual mirrors the 
evolution of the race. In the morning of the 
world man was innocent and free; but when 
self-consciousness crept in and he possessed 
himself of that disturbing motto, " Know 
Thyself," he took a fall. 
Yet knowledge usually comes to us with a 
shock, just as the mixture crystallizes when 
the chemist gives the jar a tap. We grow by 
throes. 

I well remember the day when I was put out 
of my Eden. 

My father and mother had gone away in 
the one-horse wagon, taking the baby with 
them, leaving me in care of my elder sister. 
It was a stormy day and the air was full of 
fog and mist. It did not rain very much, only 
in gusts, but great leaden clouds chased each 
other angrily across the sky. It was very 
quiet there in the little house on the prairie, 
except when the wind came and shook the 

Page 28 



windows and rattled at the doors. The morning 
seemed to drag and would n't pass, just out 
of contrariness; and I wanted it to go fast 
because in the afternoon my sister was to 
take me somewhere, but where I did not 
know, but that we should go somewhere 
was promised again and again. 
As the day wore on and we went up into the 
little garret and strained our eyes across the 
stretching prairie to see if some one was com- 
ing. There had been much rain, for on the 
prairie there was always too much rain or 
else too little. It was either drought or flood. 
Dark swarms of wild ducks were in all the 
ponds; V-shaped flocks of geese and brants 
screamed overhead, and down in the slough 
cranes danced a solemn minuet. 
Again and again we looked for the coming 
something, and I began to cry, fearing we 
had been left there, forgotten of Fate. 
At last we went out by the barn and, with 

Page 2g 



much boosting, I climbed to the top of the 
haystack and my sister followed. And still 
we watched. 

'' There they come! " exclaimed my sister. 
" There they come! '' I echoed, and clapped 
two red, chapped hands for joy. 
Away across the prairie, miles and miles 
away, was a winding string of wagons, a 
dozen perhaps, one right behind another. We 
watched until we could make out our own 
white horse. Bob, and then we slid down 
the hickory pole that leaned against the 
stack, and made our way across the spongy 
sod to the burying-ground that stood on 
a knoll half a mile away. 
We got there before the procession, and saw 
a great hole, with square corners, dug in 
the ground. It was half-full of water, and 
a man in bare feet, with trousers rolled to 
his knees, was working industriously to bale 
it out. 

Page 30 



The wagons drove up and stopped. And out 
of one of them four men hfted a long box 
and set it down beside the hole where the 
man still baled and dipped. The box was 
opened and in it was Si Johnson. Si lay very 
still, and his face was very blue, and his 
clothes were very black, save for his shirt, 
which was very white, and his hands were 
folded across his breast, just so, and held 
awkwardly in the stiff fingers was a little 
New Testament. We all looked at the blue 
face, and the women cried softly. The men 
took off their hats while the preacher prayed, 
and then we sang, ** There '11 be no more 
parting there.'' 

The lid of the box was nailed down, lines 
were taken from the harness of one of the 
teams standing by and were placed around 
the long box, and it was lowered with a splash 
into the hole. Then several men seized spades 
and the clods fell with clatter and echo. The 

Page 31 



men shoveled very hard, filling up the hole, 
and when it was full and heaped up, they 
patted it all over with the backs of their spades. 
Everybody remained until this was done, 
and then we got into the wagons and drove 
away. 

Nearly a dozen of the folks came over to 
our house for dinner, including the preacher, 
and they all talked of the man who was dead 
and how he came to die. 
Only two days before, this man. Si Johnson, 
stood in the doorway of his house and looked 
out at the falling rain. It had rained for three 
days, so they could not plow, and Si was 
angry. Besides this, his two brothers had 
enlisted and gone away to the War and left 
him all the work to do. He did not go to the 
War because he was a " Copperhead;'* and 
as he stood there in the doorway looking 
at the rain, he took a chew of tobacco, and 
then he swore a terrible oath. 

Page 32 



And ere the swear-words had escaped from 
his lips, there came a Winding flash of Hght- 
ning, and the man fell all in a heap like a 
sack of oats. 
And he was dead. 

Whether he died because he was a Copper- 
head, or because he took a chew of tobacco, 
or because he swore, I could not exactly 
understand. I waited for a convenient lull 
in the conversation and asked the preacher 
why the man died, and he patted me on the 
head and told me it was '* the vengeance of 
God," and that he hoped I would grow up 
and be a good man and never chew tobacco 
nor swear. The preacher is alive now. He is 
an old, old man with long, white whiskers, 
and I never see him but that I am tempted 
to ask for the exact truth as to why Si Johnson 
was struck by lightning. 
Yet I suppose it was because he was a Copper- 
head: all Copperheads chewed tobacco and 

P'ige 33 



swore, and that his fate was merited no one 
but the Hving Copperheads in that community 
doubted. 

That was an eventful day to me. Like men 
whose hair turns from black to gray in a night, 
I had left babyhood behind at a bound, and 
the problems of the world were upon me, 
clamoring for solution. 

THERE was war in the land. When it 
began I did not know, but that it was 
something terrible I could guess. I thought 
of it all the rest of the day and dreamed of 
it at night. Many men had gone away; and 
every day men in blue straggled by, all going 
South, forever South. 

And all the men straggling along that road 
stopped to get a drink at our well, drawing 
the water with the sweep, and drinking out 
of the bucket, and squirting a mouthful of 
water over each other. They looked at my 

Page Slf. 



father's creaking doctor's sign, and sang, 
'' Old Mother Hubbard, she went to the 
cupboard.'* 

They all sang that. They were very jolly, 
just as though they were going to a picnic. 
Some of them came back that way a few 
years later and they were not so jolly. And 
some there were who never came back at all. 
^ Freight-trains passed Southward, blue with 
men in the cars, and on top of the cars, and 
in the caboose, and on the cowcatcher, always 
going South and never North. For " Down 
South " were many Rebels, and all along the 
way South were Copperheads, and they all 
wanted to come North and kill us, so soldiers 
had to go down there and fight them. And 
I marveled much that if God hated Copper- 
heads, as our preacher said He did, why 
He did n't send lightning and kill them, just 
in a second, as He had Si Johnson. And then 
all that would have to be done would be to 

Page 35 



send for a doctor to see that they were surely 
dead, and a preacher to pray, and the neigh- 
bors would dress them in their best Sunday 
suits of black, folding their hands very care- 
fully across their breasts, then we would bury 
them deep, filling in the dirt and heaping it 
up, patting it all down very carefully with 
the back of a spade, and then go away and 
leave them until Judgment Day. 
Copperheads were simply men who hated 
Lincoln. The name came from copperhead- 
snakes, which are worse than rattlers, for 
rattlers rattle and give warning. A rattler 
is an open enemy, but you never know that 
a copperhead is around until he strikes. He lies 
low in the swale and watches his chance. '' He 
is the worstest snake that am.'* 
It was Abe Lincoln of Springfield who was 
fighting the Rebels that were trying to wreck 
the country and spread red ruin. The Copper- 
heads were wicked folks at the North who 

Page 36 



sided with the Rebels. Society was divided 
into two classes: those who favored Abe 
Lincoln, and those who told lies about him. 
All the people I knew and loved, loved Abe 
Lincoln. 

I was born at Bloomington, Illinois, through 
no choosing of my own, and Bloomington 
is further famous for being the birthplace 
of the Republican party. When a year old 
I persuaded my parents to move seven miles 
North to the village of Hudson, that then 
had five houses, a church, a store and a 
blacksmith-shop. Many of the people I knew, 
knew Lincoln, for he used to come to Bloom- 
ington several times a year '* on the circuit '' 
to try cases, and at various times made 
speeches there. When he came he would tell 
stories at the Ashley House, and when he 
was gone these stories would be repeated 
by everybody. Some of these stories must 
have been peculiar, for I once heard my 

Page 37 



mother caution my father not to tell any 
more '' Lincoln stories " at the dinner-table 
when we had company. And once Lincoln 
gave a lecture at the Presbyterian Church 
on the " Progress of Man/* when no one 
was there but the preacher, my Aunt Hannah 
and the sexton. 

My Uncle Elihu and Aunt Hannah knew 
Abe Lincoln well. So did Jesse Fell, James 
C. Conklin, Judge Davis, General Orme, 
Leonard Swett, Dick Yates and lots of 
others I knew. They never called him " Mister 
Lincoln,'' but it was always Abe or Old Abe, 
or just plain Abe Lincoln. In that newly 
settled country you always called folks by 
their first names, especially when you liked 
them. And when they spoke the name, '* Abe 
Lincoln,*' there was something in the voice 
that told of confidence, respect and affection. 
T[ Once when I was at my Aunt Hannah's, 
Judge Davis was there and I sat on his 

Page 38 



lap. The only thing about the interview I 

remember was that he really did n't have 

any lap to speak of. 

After Judge Davis had gone, Aunt Hannah 

said, ** You must always remember Judge 

Davis, for he is the man who made Abe 

Lincoln! " 

And when I said, " Why, I thought God 

made Lincoln,'' they all laughed. 

After a little pause my inquiring mind caused 

me to ask, ** Who made Judge Davis?" 

And Uncle Elihu answered, '' Abe Lincoln." 

^ Then they all laughed more than ever. 

VOLUNTEERS were being called for. 
Neighbors and neighbors' boys were en- 
listing — going to the support of Abe Lincoln. 
1[ Then one day my father went away, too. 
Many of the neighbors went with us to the 
station when he took the four-o'clock train, 
and we all cried, except mother — she did n't 

Page 39 



cry until she got home. My father had gone 
to Springfield to enlist as a surgeon. In three 
days he came back and told us he had enlisted, 
and was to be assigned his regiment in a week, 
and go at once to the front. He was always 
a kind man, but during that week when he 
was waiting to be told where to go, he was 
very gentle and more kind than ever. He told 
me I must be the man of the house while 
he was away, and take care of my mother 
and sisters, and not forget to feed the chickens 
every morning; and I promised. 
At the end of the week a big envelope 
came from Springfield marked in the corner, 
" Official." 

My mother would not open it, and so it lay 
on the table until the doctor's return. We 
all looked at it curiously, and my eldest 
sister gazed on it long with lack-luster eye 
and then rushed from the room with her 
check apron over her head. 

Page 40 



When my father rode up on horseback I 

ran to tell him that the envelope had come. 

T[ We all stood breathless and watched him 

break the seals. 

He took out the letter and read it silently 

and passed it to my mother. 

I have the letter before me now, and it says: 

'' The Department is still of the opinion 

that it does not care to accept men having 

varicose veins, which make the wearing of 

bandages necessary. Your name, however, has 

been filed and should we be able to use your 

services, will advise." 

Then we were all very glad about the varicose 

veins, and I am afraid that I went out and 

boasted to my playfellows about our family 

possessions. 

It was not so very long after, that there 

was a Big Meeting in the ** timber.'* People 

came from all over the county to attend it. 

The chief speaker was a man by the name 

Page 41 



of Ingersoll, a colonel in the army, who was 
back home for just a day or two on furlough. 
People said he was the greatest orator in 
Peoria County. 

Early in the morning the wagons began to 
go by our house, and all along the four roads 
that led to the grove we could see great clouds 
of dust that stretched away for miles and 
miles and told that the people were gathering 
by the thousand. They came in wagons and 
on horseback, and on foot and with ox-teams. 
Women rode on horseback carrying babies; 
two boys on one horse were common sights; 
and there were various four-horse teams with 
wagons filled with girls all dressed in white, 
carrying flags. 

All our folks went. My mother fastened the 
back door of our house with a bolt on the 
inside, and then locked the front door with 
a key, and hid the key under the doormat. 
1[ At the grove there was much handshaking 

Page 42 



and visiting and asking after the folks and 
for the news. Several soldiers were present, 
among them a man who lived near us, called 
*' Little Ramsey/' Three one-armed men were 
there, and a man named Al Sweetser, who 
had only one leg. These men wore blue, and 
were seated on the big platform that was all 
draped with flags. Plank seats were arranged, 
and every plank held its quota. Just outside 
the seats hundreds of men stood, and beyond 
these were wagons filled with people. Every 
tree in the woods seemed to have a horse tied 
to it, and the trees over the speakers' platform 
were black with men and boys. I never knew 
before that there were so many horses and 
people in the world. 

When the speaking began, the people cheered, 
and then they became very quiet, and only 
the occasional squealing and stamping of the 
horses could be heard. Our preacher spoke 
first, and then the lawyer from Bloomington, 

Page 1^3 



and then came the great man from Peoria. 
The people cheered more than ever when he 
stood up, and kept hurrahing so long I thought 
they were not going to let him speak at all. 
At last they quieted down, and the speaker 
began. His first sentence contained a reference 
to Abe Lincoln. The people applauded, and 
some one proposed three cheers for *' Honest 
Old Abe." Everybody stood up and cheered, 
and I, perched on my father's shoulder, 
cheered too. And beneath the legend, " War- 
ranted Fifty Pounds,'' my heart beat proudly. 
Silence came at last — a silence filled only by 
the neighing and stamping of horses and the 
rapping of a woodpecker in a tall tree. Every 
ear was strained to catch the orator's first 
words. 

The speaker was just about to begin. He 
raised one hand, but ere his lips moved, a 
hoarse, guttural shout echoed through the 
woods, '' Hurrah'h'h for Jeff Davis ! ! ! " 

Page 44 



" Kill that man!" rang a sharp, clear voice 
in instant answer. 

A rumble like an awful groan came from 
the vast crowd. My father was standing on 
a seat, and I had climbed to his shoulder. 
The crowd surged like a monster animal 
toward a tall man standing alone in a wagon. 
He swung a blacksnake whip around him, 
and the lash fell savagely on two gray horses. 
At a lunge, the horses, the wagon and the 
tall man had cleared the crowd, knocking 
down several people in their flight. One man 
clung to the tailboard. The whip wound with 
a hiss and a crack across his face, and he fell 
stunned in the roadway. 
A clear space of fully three hundred feet now 
separated the man in the wagon from the great 
throng, which with ten thousand hands seemed 
ready to tear him limb from limb. Revolver 
shots rang out, women screamed, and tram- 
pled children cried for help. Above it all was 

Page 45 



the roar of the mob. The orator, in vain pan- 
tomime, implored order. 

I saw Little Ramsey drop off the limb of a 
tree astride of a horse that was tied beneath, 
then lean over, and with one stroke of a knife 
sever the halter. 

At the same time fifty other men seemed to 
have done the same thing, for flying horses 
shot out from different parts of the woods, 
all on the instant. The man in the wagon was 
half a mile away now, still standing erect. 
The gray horses were running low, with noses 
and tails outstretched. 

The spread-out riders closed in a mass and 
followed at terrific speed. The crowd behind 
seemed to grow silent. We heard the patter- 
patter of barefoot horses ascending the long, 
low hill. One rider on a sorrel horse fell behind. 
He drew his horse to one side, and sitting over 
with one foot in the long stirrup, plied the 
sorrel across the flank with a big, white-felt 

Page Jf6 



hat. The horse responded, and crept around 
to the front of the flying mass. 
The wagon had disappeared over a gentle 
rise of ground, and then we lost the horsemen, 
too. Still we watched, and two miles across 
the prairie we got a ghmpse of running horses 
in a cloud of dust, and into another valley 
they settled, and then we lost them for good. 
^ The speaking began again and went on 
amid applause and tears, with laughter set 
between. 

I do not remember what was said, but after 
the speaking, as we made our way homeward, 
we met Little Ramsey and the young man 
who rode the sorrel horse. They told us that 
they caught the Copperhead after a ten-mile 
chase, and that he was badly hurt, for the 
wagon had upset and the fellow was beneath 
it. Ramsey asked my father to go at once 
to see what could be done for him. 
The man was quite dead when my father 

Page 47 



reached him. There was a purple mark around 
his neck; and the opinion seemed to be that 
he had got tangled up in the harness or some- 
thing. 

THE war-time months went dragging by, 
and the burden of gloom in the air 
seemed to lift; for when the Chicago Tribune 
was read each evening in the post-office it 
told of victories on land and sea. Yet it was 
a joy not untinged with black; for in the 
church across from our house, funerals had 
been held for farmer boys who had died in 
prison-pens and been buried in Georgia 
trenches. 

One youth there was, I remember, who had 
stopped to get a drink at our pump, and 
squirted a mouthful of water over me because 
I was handy. 

One night the postmaster was reading aloud 
the names of the killed at Gettysburg, and 

Page 48 



he ran right on to the name of this boy. The 
to/ father sat there on a nail-keg chew.ng 
a straw. The postmaster tried to shuffle over 
the name and on to the next. ^^ 

" Hi' Wha-what 's that you said? 
.' Killed in honorable battle-Snyder Hiram 
said the postmaster with a ^^rcdc.^^^^, 
determined to face the issue, "f J^e boy s 
father stood up with a jerk. Jh- he a^ 

!i^OodhS;'=- He's .one totell^e^d 

woman," said the postmaster as he blew 

h\^ nose on a red handkerchief. 

The preacher preached a funeral sermon fo 
L boy and on the little pyramid that 
V 7 he family lot in the burying-ground 
marked the tamuy iol ^^ honor- 

thev carved the nscription: Killea m noi 
they carveu l 4, „„ed nineteen, 

able battle, Hiram Snyder, agea 
l[Not long after, strange, yellow, bearaea 



P(jge 49 



men in faded blue began to arrive. Great 
welcomes were given them; and at the regular 
Wednesday evening prayer-meeting thanks- 
givings were poured out for their safe return, 
with names of company and regiment duly 
mentioned for the Lord's better identification. 
Bees were held for some of these returned 
farmers, where twenty teams and fifty men, 
old and young, did a season's farm work in 
a day, and split enough wood for a year. 
At such times the women would bring big 
baskets of provisions and long tables would 
be set, and there were very jolly times, with 
cracking of many jokes that were veterans, 
and the day would end with pitching horse- 
shoes, and at last with singing '' Auld Lang 
Syne." 

It was at one such gathering that a ghost 
appeared — a lank, saffron ghost, ragged as a 
scarecrow — wearing a foolish smile and the 
cape of a cavalryman's overcoat with no coat 

Page SO 



beneath it. The apparition was a youth of 
about twenty, with a downy beard all over 
his face, and countenance well mellowed with 
coal soot, as though he had ridden several 
days on top of a freight-car that was near 
the engine. This ghost was Hiram Snyder. 
^ All forgave him the shock of surprise he 
caused us — all except the minister who had 
preached his funeral sermon. Years after I 
heard this minister remark in a solemn, grieved 
tone: '' Hiram Snyder is a man who can not 
be relied on." 

AS the years pass, the miracle of the seasons 
1 A. means less to us. But what country boy 
can forget the turning of the leaves from 
green to gold, and the watchings and wait- 
ings for the first hard frost that ushers in 
the nutting season! And then the first fall 
of snow, with its promise of skates and sleds 
and tracks of rabbits, and mayhap bears. 

Page 51 



and strange animals that only come out at 
night, and that no human eye has ever seen! 
^ Beautiful are the seasons; and glad I am 
that I have not yet quite lost my love for 
each. But now they parade past with a curious 
swiftness! They look at me out of wistful 
eyes, and sometimes one calls to me as she 
goes by and asks, " Why have you done so 
little since I saw you last? " And I can only 
answer, " I was thinking of you/* 
I do not need another incarnation to live 
my life over again. I can do that now, and 
the resurrection of the past, through memory, 
that sees through closed eyes, is just as satis- 
factory as the thing itself. 
Were we talking of the seasons? Very well, 
dearie, the seasons it shall be. They are all 
charming, but if I were to wed any it would 
be Spring. How well I remember the gentle 
perfume of her comings, and her warm, languid 
breath ! 

Page 52 



There was a time when I would go out of the 
house some morning, and the snow would 
be melting, and Spring would kiss my cheek, 
and then I would be all aglow with joy and 
would burst into the house, and cry: '* Spring 
is here! Spring is here! " For you know we 
always have to divide our joy with some one. 
One can bear grief, but it takes two to be glad. 
T[ And then my mother would smile and say, 
" Yes, my son, but do not wake the baby! " 
1[ Then I would go out and watch the snow 
turn to water, and run down the road in little 
rivulets to the creek, that would swell until 
it became a regular Mississippi, so that when 
we waded the horse across, the water would 
come to the saddlegirth. 

Then once, I remember, the bridge was washed 
away, and all the teams had to go around and 
through the water, and some used to get 
stuck in the mud on the other bank. It was 
great fun! 

Page 53 



The first '' Spring beauties " bloomed very 
early that year; violets came out on the 
South side of rotting logs, and cowslips blos- 
somed in the slough as they never had done 
before. Over on the knoll, prairie-chickens 
strutted pompously and proudly drummed. 
1[ The war was over! Lincoln had won, and 
the country was safe! H The jubilee was 
infectious, and the neighbors who used to 
come and visit us would tell of the men and 
boys who would soon be back. 
The war was over! 

My father and mother talked of it across 
the table, and the men talked of it at the 
store, and earth, sky and water called to 
each other in glad relief, ** The war is over! " 
But there came a morning when my father 
walked up from the railroad-station very fast, 
and looking very serious. He pushed right 
past me as I sat in the doorway. I followed 
him into the kitchen where my mother was 

Page 54 



washing dishes, and I heard him say, " They 
have killed Lincoln! " and then he burst into 
tears. 

I had never before seen my father shed tears 
— in fact, I had never seen a man cry. There 
is something terrible in the grief of a man. 
^ Soon the church-bell across the road began 
to toll. It tolled all that day. Three men — 
I can give you their names — rang the bell 
all day long, tolling, slowly tolling, tolling 
until night came and the stars came out. 
I thought it a little curious that the stars 
should come out, for Lincoln was dead; but 
they did, for I saw them as I trotted by my 
father's side down to the post-office. 
There was a great crowd of men there. At 
the long line of peeled-hickory hitching-poles 
were dozens of saddle-horses. The farmers had 
come for miles to get details of the news. 
On the long counters that ran down each 
side of the store men were seated, swinging 

Page SS 



their feet, and listening intently to some one 
who was reading aloud from a newspaper. 
We worked our way past the men who were 
standing about, and with several of these my 
father shook hands solemnly. 
Leaning against the wall near the window 
was a big, red-faced man, whom I knew as 
a Copperhead. He had been drinking, evi- 
dently, for he was making boozy efforts to 
stand very straight. There were only heard 
a subdued buzz of whispers and the monoto- 
nous voice of the reader, as he stood there 
in the center, his newspaper in one hand and 
a lighted candle in the other. 
The red-faced man lurched two steps forward, 
and in a loud voice said, '' L — L — Lincoln is 
dead — an' I 'm damn glad of it! " 
Across the room I saw two men struggling 
with Little Ramsey. Why they should struggle 
with him I could not imagine, but ere I could 
think the matter out, I saw him shake himself 

Page 56 



loose from the strong hands that sought to 
hold him. He sprang upon the counter, and 
in one hand I saw he held a scale-weight. 
Just an instant he stood there, and then the 
weight shot straight at the red-faced man. 
The missile glanced on his shoulder and shot 
through the window. In another second the 
red-faced man plunged through the window, 
taking the entire sash with him. 
** You '11 have to pay for that window! " 
called the alarmed postmaster out into the 
night. 

The store was quickly emptied, and on fol- 
lowing outside no trace of the red man could 
be found. The earth had swallowed both 
the man and the five-pound scale-weight. 
After some minutes had passed in a vain 
search for the weight and the Copperhead, 
we went back into the store and the reading 
was continued. 
But the interruption had relieved the tension. 

Page 57 



and for the first time that day men in that 
post-office joked and laughed. It even lifted 
from my heart the gloom that threatened to 
smother me, and I went home and told the 
story to my mother and sisters, and they too 
smiled, so closely akin are tears and smiles. 

THE story of Lincoln's life had been in- 
grained into me long before I ever read 
a book. For the people who knew Lincoln, 
and the people who knew the people that 
Lincoln knew, were the only people I knew. 
I visited at their houses and heard them tell 
what Lincoln had said when he sat at table 
where I then sat. I listened long to Lincoln 
stories, " and that reminds me " was often 
on the lips of those I loved. All the tales 
told by the faithful Herndon and the need- 
lessly loyal Nicolay and Hay were current 
coin, and the rehearsal of the Lincoln-Douglas 
debate was commonplace. 

Page 58 



When our own poverty was mentioned, we 
compared it with the poverty that Lincoln 
had endured, and felt rich. I slept in a garret 
where the Winter^s snow used to sift merrily 
through the slab shingles, but then I was 
covered with warm buffalo robes, and a lov- 
ing mother tucked me in and on my forehead 
imprinted a good-night kiss. But Lincoln at 
the same age had no mother and lived in a 
hut that had neither windows, doors nor floor, 
and a pile of leaves and straw in the corner 
was his bed. Our house had two rooms, but 
one Winter the Lincoln home was only a 
shed enclosed on three sides. 
I knew of his being a clerk in a country 
store at the age of twenty, and that up to 
that time he had read but four books; of 
his running a flatboat, splitting rails, and 
poring at night over a dog-eared lawbook; 
of his asking to sleep in the law-oflice of 
Joshua Speed, and of Speed's giving him 

Page 59 



permission to move in. And of his going away 
after his " worldly goods '* and coming back 
in ten minutes carrying an old pair of saddle- 
bags which he threw into a corner saying, 
" Speed, I Ve moved! " 

I knew of his twenty years of country law- 
practise, when he was considered just about 
as good and no better than a dozen others 
on that circuit, and of his making a bare 
living during the time. Then I knew of his 
gradually awakening to the wrong of slavery, 
of the expansion of his mind, so that he began 
to incur the jealousy of rivals and the hatred 
of enemies, and of the prophetic feeling in 
that slow but sure moving mind that '* a 
house divided against itself can not stand. 
I believe this Government can not endure 
permanently half-slave and half-free." 
I knew of the debates with Douglas and 
the national attention they attracted, and 
of Judge Davis' remark, " Lincoln has more 

Page 60 



commonsense than any other man in Amer- 
ica;" and then, chiefly through Judge Davis' 
influence, of his being nominated for Presi- 
dent at the Chicago Convention. I knew of 
his election, and the coming of the war, 
and the long, hard fight, when friends and 
foes beset, and none but he had the patience 
and the courage that could wait. And then 
I knew of his death, that death which then 
seemed a calamity — terrible in its awful black- 
ness. 

But now the years have passed, and I com- 
prehend somewhat of the paradox of things, 
and I know that his death was just what 
he might have prayed for. It was a fitting 
close for a life that had done a supreme and 
mighty work. 
His face foretold the end. 
Lincoln had no home ties. In that plain, 
frame house, without embellished yard or 
ornament, where I have been so often, there 

Page 6i 



was no love that held him fast. In that house 
there was no library, but in the parlor, where 
six haircloth chairs and a slippery sofa to 
match stood guard, was a marble table on 
which were various gift-books in blue and 
gilt. He only turned to that home when there 
was no other place to go. Politics, with its 
attendant travel and excitement, allowed him 
to forget the what-might-have-beens. Foolish 
bickering, silly pride, and stupid misunder- 
standing pushed him out upon the streets 
and he sought to lose himself amorig the 
people. And to the people at length he gave 
his time, his talents, his love, his life. Fate 
took from him his home that the country 
might call him savior. Dire tragedy was a 
fitting end; for only the souls who have suf- 
fered are well-loved. 

Jealousy, disparagement, calumny, have all 
made way, and North and South alike revere 
his name. 

Page 62 



The memory of his gentleness, his patience, 
his firm faith, and his great and loving heart 
are the priceless heritage of a united land. 
He had charity for all and malice toward 
none; he gave affection, and affection is his 
reward. If Honor and love are his. 



Page 63 



